Yes — other pitchers threw too

With all of the hoopla about Aroldis Chapman, you might have wondered if anyone else pitched on Wednesday. They certainly did.

On the field I was watching, I saw Carlos Fisher, Jordan Smith, Logan Ondrusek, Phillipe Valiquette and Pedro Viola. On the other field included Mike Leake, Sam LeCure, Matt Maloney. I heard that Jonny Gomes took Leake deep with a homer. But I don’t believe anyone else left the field with one.

Ondrusek is listed as 6-foot-8 but looks much taller in person and was definitely more imposing from the mound. I had never seen Valiquette before — he was a very hard-throwing lefty pitcher.

“I like the fact that everybody was around the plate,” pitching coach Bryan Price said. “These guys showed up to compete for jobs on the team. That’s been very apparent from the first workout. Guys seem to have an idea that they need to come in commanding their stuff with their arms in good shape. They’ve done that instead of trying to impress by overthrowing or doing things that get you into trouble. This is a pretty polished group.”

Like mentioned in the previous post, Price had pitchers not use a screen. He didn’t want them to get into a bad habit by changing delivery to drop behind it. It only became an issue once when Chris Heisey hit a screamer off of Smith’s leg. Smith was able to continue pitching.

Among the other hitters I watched — Todd Frazier, Juan Francisco and Yonder Alonso. It’s hard to gauge how they did. They really were at a disadvantage so early in camp. Some had some good hits, including Alonso that last few swings in the cage.

One other quirky moment happened during fielding drills. On a bunt play with Chapman on the mound, the catched yelled “three” meaning Chapman was supposed to throw to third base. But with the language barrier, he didn’t understand. He was told three meant “tres” and got the play right on the next try.

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